Monuments to the Combatants of the Overseas War in the Portuguese Communities
“Sacrificed in life, respected in death” can be read on a monument, in Canada, in memory of the Portuguese combatants who fell in the Overseas War.
The month of February marks the 60th anniversary of the beginning of the Overseas War (1961-1974), a period of war between the Portuguese Armed Forces and the Liberation Movements of the former overseas provinces of Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique, which is one of the most important events in Portuguese-speaking national and African history in the 19th century. XX.
A dramatic, tragic and traumatic military conflict for more than one million Portuguese, who provided military service on the three combat fronts, where around 8,300 soldiers fell, as well as for the Angolan, Guinean and Mozambican populations, whose total number of victims, between guerrillas and civilians, more than 100 thousand dead.
The living density and the impact of the also known as Colonial War on Portuguese society have sustained over the last decades the inauguration in the national territory of numerous monuments in homage to the dead soldiers, which already number around three hundred.
In the calculation of the list of monuments alluding to the Combatants of the Overseas War, which are marked by the League of Combatants (LC) in the book “Monumentos aos Combatentes da Grande Guerra e do Ultramar”, most of them built in the 19th century. XXI, and which, according to Lieutenant General Chito Rodrigues, President of the LC, are “the expression of a deep national feeling about what the colonial war was like and the sacrifices that the Portuguese people made in that conflict”, the existence of of four monuments built within Portuguese communities in Canada and the United States.
In Canada, where it is estimated that more than half a million Portuguese-Canadians currently live, the first monument to be erected in memory of the combatants who fell in the Overseas War was inaugurated in 2009, in the city of Winnipeg, capital of the province of Manitoba. .
Designed by the Portuguese architect Varandas dos Santos, the memorial promoted by the Portuguese Association of War Veterans of Manitoba and Nucleus of the League of Combatants of Portugal in Winnipeg, and carried out with the support of the Province of Manitoba, the League of Combatants, the Luso- Canadiana, from the Portuguese Association of Manitoba and Chapel Lawn Memorial Gardens, invokes the military of the past, present and future.
In 2012, the city of Oakville, next to Toronto, capital of the province of Ontario where it is estimated that more than 20,000 former combatants of the Overseas War live, attended the inauguration, at the Glen Oak Memorial Garden, of a statue in honor of the Portuguese and Canadian soldiers killed in war situations.
The monument, designed jointly by the architect Varandas dos Santos and the commander José Mário Coelho, and impelled by the Association of Former Portuguese Overseas Combatants in Ontario, was installed in the plot called “Nossa Senhora de Fátima”. The monument, which had financial support from the Secretary of State for Portuguese Communities and the League of Combatants of Portugal, stands out for the existence of several elements, of which a Cross of Christ and a soldier's helmet stand out, with the inscription: “Sacrificed in life, respected in death”.
Historian Daniel Bastos (right), with a path founded within the Portuguese Communities, visited in 2019 the monument honoring former combatants of the Overseas War in the city of Oakville, near Toronto, in the company of the former combatant and President of the General Assembly of the 25th of April Cultural Association in Toronto, Artur Jesus (left). Photo: DR
Also in Canadian territory, namely in Laval, a city in the province of Quebec, a region where the total number of Portuguese and Portuguese descendants is expected to exceed 60,000 people, the Monument to Portuguese Combatants was inaugurated on 1 November 2014. Erected in a space provided by the Portuguese Association of Laval, and driven by the Québec Nucleus of the League of Combatants, former Association Ex-Combatants from Overseas (Angola, Guinea and Mozambique) of Québec, the monument simply invokes the memory of the fallen soldiers in the fulfillment of the duty.
Still in North America, but already in the United States, more specifically in Lowell, a city in Middlesex county in Massachusetts, a state that is home to a large Portuguese-American community of Azorean origin, a monument was inaugurated in 2000 in memory of the deceased and former -fighters from overseas Portuguese and the participants of the Revolution of 25 April 1974. Driven by the large Portuguese-American community, with special emphasis on Dimas Espínola, a reference in the Portuguese community world of Lowell, the monument had the resolute support, among others , from the Portuguese American Center League and the Lowell Veterans Association.
Disseminated throughout the national territory and by Portuguese communities in the world, especially in North America, the Monuments to the Combatants of the Overseas War, observe a duty of memory, because as the French essayist Joseph Joubert recalls “Memory is the mirror where we observe the absent ”.
Author: Daniel Bastos, Historian and Writer
Daniel Bastos
bastos_1980@hotmail.com19 February 2021 - 17:27
Because today is Sunday, the day to reflect on the comrades who fell in combat and not only
